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		<title>A new academic advisor &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2016/11-November/10.xhtml&gt;</title>
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		<header>
			<h1>A new academic advisor</h1>
			<p>Day 00614: Thursday, 2016 November 10</p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2016/11/10.jpg" alt="Hot pink, daisy-looking flowers" class="weblog-header-image" width="811" height="480" />
<p>
	Current countdowns:
</p>
<ul>
	<li>234 scheme-specific <abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr>-parsing classes to write and add to <a href="https://git.vola7ileiax4ueow.onion/y.st./include.d/releases">include.d</a></li>
	<li>1 free elective left in my associate degree program</li>
	<li>4 free electives left in my bachelor degree program</li>
</ul>
<p>
	Topics for essays that I want to write outside of school:
</p>
<ul>
<li>How the <abbr title="GNU &quot;Free&quot; Documentation License">GFDL</abbr> isn&apos;t a free license, and is effectively nonfree even when invariant sections aren&apos;t used</li>
<li>How the telephone number system is screwy</li>
<li>How postpaid mobile plans are bad for customers</li>
<li>How connections using &quot;untrusted&quot; <abbr title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</abbr> certificates are more trustworthy than connections without any <abbr title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</abbr> certificate at all</li>
<li>The importance of free software</li>
<li>The importance of free media</li>
</ul>
<p>
	I received a letter from my new academic advisor informing me that they would be replacing my former academic advisor in helping me through the university.
	I immediately wrote to them explaining the situation:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
	I could actually really use your help at the moment.
	During the course registration period, the school website would only allow me to register for three courses: BUS 1101, POLS 1503, and UNIV 1001.
	Of these three,BUS 1101 is unrelated to my degree program and I was already finishing up the other two.
</p>
<p>
	I spoke with [my last advisor] and student services about the issue.
	[My last advisor] said to register for BUS 1101, despite the fact that I don&apos;t need it, and we&apos;d clear this up during late registrations.
</p>
<p>
	I registered for BUS 1101 as requested, but when late registrations came, I was still unable to register for any actually-needed courses.
	I reached out to [my last advisor] and student services again.
	[My last advisor] told me to stay the course.
	Student services never got back to me.
	I later received a letter from the school, saying that by the end of the week, they&apos;d have registered me for two courses related to my degree program.
	However, the week ended, the term started, and I&apos;m enrolled in one course that I don&apos;t need and *zero* courses that I do need.
</p>
<p>
	Can you please help me get this cleared up?
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
	Will this academic advisor know what they&apos;re doing any better than my last one? We&apos;ll soon see.
</p>
<p>
	I had wholly intended to get a lot of work done on my <a href="/en/coursework/BUS1101/Leadership_Entrepreneurship_and_Strategy.xhtml"><span title="Principles of Business Management">BUS 1101</span> essay</a> today, but the letter from my new academic advisor threw me off a bit.
	Being in the wrong course and being in too few courses is stressing me out.
	Being able to talk about the problem with someone new offers potential for renewed hope for a fix.
	Between that and the horrifying election results, I&apos;m a bit worn out emotionally.
	Hopefully, I&apos;ll do better tomorrow.
	Also hopefully, I&apos;ll get a response from my new academic advisor tomorrow, because I didn&apos;t get one today.
</p>
<p>
	I did get a little work on my essay done though.
	However, the essay length requirement is a bit vague.
	I&apos;m supposed to write two pages.
	How much is two pages? That entirely depends on the font and the text size.
	Because our submissions are made by pasting our essays into a Web form, there&apos;s no concept of page length; this isn&apos;t a LibreOffice document, after all.
	In any case, I&apos;m going to aim for about four pages in length, measured in LibreOffice Writer, using a somewhat-small variable-width font and the default font size.
	That should be enough to satisfy anyone that is measuring page length differently than me.
</p>
<p>
	Chris Zabriskie has just released another of their ambient music albums, <a href="https://chriszabriskie.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-neptune-flux">Music from Neptune Flux</a>.
	If ambient music is something that you&apos;re into, you might want to take a look.
</p>
<p>
	My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
</p>
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